


Under the sun and beneath the sky

by Baryshnikov



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Autumn, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-13 22:39:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16481093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: Abraxas has always loved Tom, and now sitting watching the sunset, he could almost believe that Tom loves him too.





	Under the sun and beneath the sky

They were sitting out on the bandstand where sometimes the Malfoys had summer concerts. But it wasn’t summer anymore, and only the ghosts of a band were playing. It was quiet sitting here watching the sun, hearing nothing but the wind humming like the string section and the occasional rustling of the fallen leaves. They were scattered across the grass, a patchwork against the green, each individually highlighted by the glow of the sun. They were sitting on the damp wood with the warm golden rays stinging their eyes and the undercurrent of an autumn chill cutting their cheeks.  
Tom liked it out here when the world was a sour as he was inside. So, Abraxas supposed he liked it a little, liked it because Tom liked it.  
He leaned his head against Tom’s shoulder and watched the golden glint on the lake. He was glad the others couldn’t see them, if they could, Tom would have pushed him away and denounced his sentimentality, but here alone, Tom indulged him. Let him be sentimental. Let him place nostalgic kisses up his neck and hold his hand and laugh under the sun’s idyllic filter. Tom always told him he said too much, gave too much, loved too much, and that one day someone would take advantage of that. Abraxas had laughed, it always amazed him that Tom could delude himself into thinking he was the hero of this story, could think that he wasn’t already taking advantage of Abraxas’ weaknesses. Not that he minded, if anything, he rather liked having Tom around: the dark to his light, the jagged edge to his smooth frame. He made Tom that much brighter, and in return, Tom made him that much more compelling. No one else would ever really understand what was between them, but they didn’t need to understand, they just needed to see that they had each other and that was never going to change.

The sun was fading, its fingers becoming paler as they reached for the sky, staining the clouds pink as they eluded their grasp. Abraxas entwined his fingers with Tom’s and didn’t smile until he felt Tom’s fingertips come to rest against his knuckles. For years he had pretended he didn’t love Tom, that what he felt was not akin to love, it was merely a passion, an infatuation with the magic and the remarkable creature that cast it. But he couldn’t pretend anymore. He loved Tom, and Tom returned the feeling in his own strange way. Tom wasn’t as unfeeling as they all thought, he was good at hiding his judgements, that much was certain, just as he was good at manipulating his feelings. But Tom had emotions and passions and sentiments. They were narrowly defined, and he never let them get the better of him, but that didn’t stop them running under the surface. Abraxas knew he was privileged to have seen them, he also knew Tom wouldn’t take kindly to him sharing those secrets. But if there was anything that Abraxas was good at, it was keeping secrets.  
Abraxas looked up and watched Tom, he was just staring at the sky. Face highlighted, and eyes turned to melted sugar, his shirt stained with orange and his hands soaked in gold. He looked like he was on fire, and Abraxas just wanted to warm his hands on the flames. He knew he was the wood that would stoke Tom’s inferno, he knew without him, Tom was little more than a spark, a brief moment of brilliance hanging in the abyss of mediocrity. He had a feeling Tom was only just realising that. Only just understanding that he needed Abraxas, and Abraxas liked to dream, maybe, that he was also realising he wanted him, just a little. Realised that he liked to have Abraxas pushed against the wall, hands hooked around the back of his neck, liked lying in bed with him on Sunday mornings, Abraxas’ hands curling in his hair, liked him at times like this when they were completely alone, and no one would judge them if they just kissed until time itself dissolved. 

He felt Tom shift and turn to look at him. He couldn’t help but fall in love with that face, over and over again, everyone did. Abraxas would bet there was no one who would decline an offer from Tom, he could have had anyone he liked. So, it gave him a certain pride to know he was the one Tom picked from the masses. He couldn’t help but flaunt it. Sitting with his head in Tom’s lap or stroking Tom’s arm while he read, or even leaning over and sneaking a taste of his lips when all the others were distracted. Those were the best moments when all the others could see that _he_ was the favourite. Of course, he knew he wasn’t the only one, that Tom was quite happy to do whatever it took to get people to do what he wanted and if that involved sliding his tongue down Avery’s throat until he was a whining mess, then so be it. It wasn’t like Abraxas himself hadn’t had his tongue between Druella’s thighs after that quidditch game, or several other quidditch games since. They always came back to each other smelling of other people and that was one of Abraxas’ favourite things in the whole world; tasting someone else on Tom’s lips and knowing all of them thought they were special. They weren’t. They were just pawns Tom liked to play with when he was bored, pushing them around and seeing what would happen. Tom had let him watch once when he’d needed something done, and Lestrange to be the one to do it. Abraxas would never forget how all the seething anger that characterised Lestrange had just melted away. How he’d fallen against Tom, hands clutching his shirt, how he’d been so willing to get to his knees. Been so willing to abandon everything for just one sample of the divine. He could still smell Lestrange on Tom, still see his fingerprints ingrained in his skin and it always made him smile, to know he had exactly what Lestrange wanted but couldn’t have. 

Tom moved again, unhooking his hand from Abraxas’ grip and using it to smooth his hair behind his ear. Abraxas smiled. They both knew Tom suited sunset better, the darker colours more dramatic, more vivid, more striking, they looked better on him. Abraxas was made for the dawn with its pale light straining through opaque curtains, illuminating the world with a pale wonder. They complemented each other, the sunrise and the sunset, the end of the day and the beginning. They were perfect for each other and how could Abraxas not love that?  
Tom leaned over and pressed his sunset lips to Abraxas’, he was always surprisingly gentle at the beginning, cautious, as if Abraxas was going to tell him to stop. He wouldn’t be so gentle by the end, he would be persuasive and insistent and undeniable, forcing Abraxas to do all the work. Mouth heavy, hands pushing him down, daring him to disobey, to glimpse things he shouldn’t. That was the only thing Abraxas had never been allowed to see, Tom falling apart. He was not allowed to witness Tom’s façade cracking and all the colours spilling out into the world, was not allowed to watch him crumbling from his perch on top of the world. Tom did not like that he was mortal. Mortals were so weak in his eyes, so pathetic in their finite bodies, with their temporal hearts. Tom never let anyone see that he was mortal too, he would much rather they all saw him as a deity, untouched by such inconveniences as time and death. 

Abraxas could feel the growing persistence in Tom’s kisses, the way he was leaning forward, pushing him onto his back, overwhelming him in the same way as always. He didn’t resist when Tom’s hands finally tipped him back and the rest of Tom’s body coiled around him, hands holding his shoulders hard enough to tell him there was no use striving or scuffling or struggling. Surrendering himself was the only option unless he wanted things to get particularly nasty.  
Not that he didn’t like Tom’s mouth against his neck, and Tom murmuring all the things he liked to hear. It was strangely intimate for such a public place, so obvious to the world. Abraxas could almost feel the trees and the sky and the clouds and the grass watching; could almost feel them all passing judgement at the ease with which he gave into Tom’s demands. He could also feel the coldness creep into his body, sticking to the wetness Tom left at his neck and numbing his fingers. Tom pressed their mouths together again, his lips were cold, but his breath was warm, making Abraxas sigh and relax a little, though not giving Tom everything. That would be a dangerous game, he always tried to keep a little back right till the very end, make Tom work for him a little, prove he that wasn’t _that_ easy. That Tom couldn’t just have him whenever it was convenient, although they both knew Tom could. Tom could do anything he wanted, and Abraxas doubted he would resist in the end. That didn’t stop his mind wondering though, it didn’t stop his thoughts straying to the endless possibilities of what he could do to Tom. How he could make him feel if only Tom would let him. 

Abraxas let his body go lax, and at the moment that Tom was congratulating himself on another victory, he switched their positions, pushing Tom against the damp wood. Tom looked up him, he wasn’t afraid, but he was certainly on edge.  
“What are you doing, Abraxas?”  
“Doing what I want for a change.”  
Tom smiled and dropped his head back, sun gleaming across his neck, “and what is it that you want?”  
“I want to see you fall apart,” he murmured.  
Tom went very quiet, limbs tensing, he was deciding; Abraxas could practically hear him weighing up his options, practically hear the buzzing ideas of how to get out of the situation, how to maintain the equilibrium between them without actually having to commit to anything.  
“Trust me,” Abraxas said, kissing his jaw, not yet removing his hands from Tom’s wrists, just in case he decided resistance would be a better option.  
“I never trust anyone, least of all a Malfoy,” Tom said, still tense, still unsure, perhaps even a little nervous.  
“Trust me, Tom” he repeated, pressing their lips together. It took a few minutes of kissing in the cold before Tom nodded, shoulders relaxing just slightly. His body giving Abraxas the smallest leeway to do what he liked.  
He could have gotten drunk off the small moans Tom made when he abandoned his neck, could have gotten lost in Tom’s glazed eyes as he looked up. There was such a depth in those eyes, reminding Abraxas what power Tom was letting him have, and what the consequences would be if he were to abuse that power. He kept his eyes on Tom even as he undid the buttons of his shirt, watching as he sharply inhaled when the air bit his skin. Tom had never been bothered by the cold, he was always burning up, a fever festering in his heart, always desperate for a release Tom was reluctant to give it. Today was no different, his skin so hot and his neck tilted back, still fighting everything his body wanted. Abraxas couldn’t help but splay his tongue across Tom’s chest and slide it down his stomach, leaving a thick strip of wetness that the cool air immediately began to lick.  
Abraxas took his time, allowing himself to look at all the things Tom would normally guide him away from: the gentle shifting of his thighs, the paleness of his skin, the sharpness of his hipbones. Abraxas had never noticed how delicate was, still strong but in a fragile sort of way, like the right touches could bring it all crashing down around him. He decided he liked it when Tom gave in and stopped resisting everything, although just under his skin, Abraxas could still feel the resistance, the tension, the lack of trust radiating from every bone in Tom’s body. He wished he could wipe it all away and start again with a clean slate, but he doubted Tom’s slate would ever be clean. Tom simply wasn’t someone who trusted people and Abraxas would just have to accept that, accept it or go without, one was infinitely better than the other.

He should have been cold, but Tom’s skin was always smouldering, always emitting enough heat to keep Abraxas alive forever. He supposed he should feel self-conscious undressing Tom in the open air, but Tom force of nature, he understood the world, he understood how the sky blurred into the line of the earth and why the moon smudged the sky so early. His soul was not exposed here, it was safe, safe from the society that would fashion it into their greatest desires, and mould it until he no longer recognised himself.  
There was something to be admired in the way he let Abraxas strip back the layers he’d done his best to construct, although his eyes were glassy, vacant as if he wasn’t there at all. But Abraxas could hear Tom’s unsteady breaths and see the way he chewed on his lip suggested he was feeling absolutely everything that Abraxas was doing to him.  
Abraxas couldn’t help but love the vulnerability in Tom’s body, somehow it contradicted the possessiveness with which Tom wrapped his legs around Abraxas’ back, contradicted the instructions that spilled from his mouth, the ones Tom naively thought he still had the authority to give. He didn’t, and Abraxas ignored him, and for once in his life, Tom didn’t protest. He just lay there, hips rocking rhythmically with Abraxas’, mouth slack, heavy breathing becoming heavy groaning. It was so obvious when Abraxas did something Tom liked, his eyes would scrunch shut and he’d moan, his whole body curving to connect with Abraxas’. He was so beautiful splayed under the sun, being the exact opposite of what he always was. It made Abraxas wonder whether he’d died and now was in an eternal dreamland. He would have believed it if it hadn’t been for Tom’s heel digging into his spine, pressing harder when he thought Abraxas could be trying more. That made him laugh, that even like this when Tom was at his weakest, he still found a way to control the situation.  
It was almost as funny that however much he had wanted to see Tom break, he couldn’t quite bring himself to look when the moment came. When Tom’s eyes were closed, and he was biting his lip too hard and moaning so needily, Abraxas closed his eyes and didn’t open them again until he felt Tom’s body clench and his breathing level out. Only then did he look, eyes meeting the sight they always met: Tom’s throat on display, his face still flushed that delicate shade of pink, hands still trembling, body still waiting for bliss to subside.

The world was suddenly very cold then, the sun nearly set, the last rays sliding back across the sky and black emptiness setting in, and Tom didn’t move, wouldn’t disentangle himself from Abraxas, as if he wanted to keep them there together, one body, forever.  
Eventually, he let go, let Abraxas get dressed and lie beside him, staring together at the sky. But Abraxas couldn’t stand to look at the sky, not when there was such a bright star sitting beside him. A star with sharp hipbones and trembling hands, a star with such pale skin and such dark eyes, a star that was still trying to work out whether it really belonged motionless in the sky, or whether it should come crashing down to earth, sending ripples through the universe. Abraxas didn’t really care which path Tom chose, just as long as he would let him go with him to the end of the world, and when Tom turned to look at him, Abraxas was sure that he would let him because he was as much Tom’s revelation as Tom was Abraxas’ own.


End file.
